HOW TO BUILD ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE
As Greek philosopher Heraclitus aptly stated, ““The Only Constant in Life Is Change.” The ubiquity of change is now further complicated by uncertainty in politics, economics, and health all of which is affecting everyone on an individual level but also on organizational ones. It is more vital than ever that companies be resilient enough to weather challenges while maintaining their values, cultures, and business goals. There is plenty of advice and research on psychological resilience for individuals, and a surprising number of these ideas translate into an organizational context.
What does it mean to have a resilient organization? According to Dr. Tara Swart, who came up with the Organizational Plasticity Index (OPI) to measure how well organizations handle change: “In the corporate world, both the culture of the business and its response to the outside world define its ability to adapt and survive. This includes attitude to risk and innovation, approach to corporate social responsibility, team building, diversity and inclusion policies and its bribery and corruption stance.” Much like people, companies need to be able to rewire pathways to alter habits that don’t suit them.
The first step to creating a resilient organization is resilient leaders. Always remember that organizations are made up of people. Just as a person cannot be healthy if they don’t have healthy cells, companies can’t be healthy without healthy employees. Leaders who can model wellness, self-care, and a healthy work-life balance to their teams will have a much easier time increasing their workplace’s resilience. Culture starts from the top.
The next step is a commitment to fostering connections between employees and trust in management. Robust synapses, much like the human brain. Trust has to run both ways. Managers must be allowed to speak to their employees openly, and employees must be able to trust that they won’t be punished for raising concerns or making suggestions. “In uncertain times, trust isn’t a luxury; it’s the operating system of high performance teams,” writes Jacob Orrin, founder of Merit. Clarity and openness are necessary, even if they may feel vulnerable or like they could “scare” employees. People value transparency. They understand things may not be certain, but if they are given clear processes and information, they are more likely to return that trust.
Employees want to work in places that give them purpose. So understanding the core values of a company and sticking to them even when things get hard is vital to building resilience. Why do things operate the way they do? What do we as an organization value? Reevaluate those questions regularly, while being open to feedback to ensure everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal.
Research showed that companies with strong organizational resilience, including behaviors like “knowledge sharing, performance reviews, and bottom-up innovation” were less likely to go bankrupt during the early COVID years of 2020-2022. This era has also seen increased turnover and employee absence thanks to the “Great Attrition.” Resilient companies are better at retaining employees even through hard times, because they can respond to concerns quickly and effectively without compromising their core mission.
In order to survive, companies have to build and practice a resilient culture as early as possible. Build strong foundations before the crisis, not during it. As the world becomes more uncertain, the goal of companies (and people) should not be finding ways to stop bad things from happening. It should be to develop the internal tools to handle the problems as they come.
